Joker stands in the shadow of a god. It's not his first time doing so and he already has a sinking feeling that it won't be the last, but he can feel the terror of his teammates like it's a physical thing, constricting his chest. Years have passed since the last time he's stood here. Wind whips through his hair, and he has to dig his heels in to not be swept away by the shifts from Yaldaboath's great wings. The corners of his vision are tinged red, framed by the spindly arches of Mementos and his own blood leaking down his forehead and onto his mask. He's stronger than ever, and power thrums within him. His personas ache against his mind, desperate to fight.
Despite it all, he feels impossibly small, eclipsed beneath Yaldabaoth. Even in the midst of battle, adrenaline running through his veins and heart thumping uncontrollably, he feels the oppressive hopelessness of their task, nothing but a mere mortal in the face of impossible odds. Queen makes a distressed noise beside him, the hope Joker has tried so hard to nurture within her failing when they need it most. Fox hisses in protest, an echo of his namesake, as Yaldabaoth rises above them, its impenetrable skin only serving to repel their desperate attacks. With one swipe, they all crash to the ground. Joker can already taste the failure, heavy on his tongue, and it causes a rush of uncontrollable loathing.
He's not sure who it's directed at, because the thing is, he'd actually tried this time.
Yaldabaoth looks down upon them, its blank mask revealing nothing. A parody of a laugh scrapes out of it, drowning out the shouts of the masses below. Voices, closer. The rest of the Thieves? They don't matter. All that does is the god of control, playing its meaningless games with their lives.
"Trickster," it says in something that's almost a purr, a blood-stained shark carelessly attempting to comfort a helpless child. Joker snarls. "How many lifetimes do you insist upon falling to me?"
Joker wants nothing more than to rip off his mask, call all of his personas forth, release hell upon the being that has been torturing him for decades. Instead, he's trapped under the weight of its wrath, the confusion of his teammates. He's failed them, again. His voice chokes off, defiant words refusing to break free. The five stages of grief indeed, all achieved in less than two minutes.
What comes out is a weak, "Why?" Why keep resetting time? Why choose him, of all people? Why control the innocent people below? Why? Why? Why?
"Why not?" Yaldabaoth answers, measured and sadistic. Why not let them all go? Why not end the cycle? Why not just kill them once and for all, instead of toying with its prey?
In a moment, the rest of the world drains away, leaving nothing but pain and darkness behind. Gossamer wings fill his vision, the pinpricks of light cerulean and calm. A familiar child's voice, frantic. "Trickster," it whispers, only a fleeting thought as the delicate butterfly flutters before him. "The World still awaits you. Your chances of winning are yet naught."
Such a vote of confidence. He's too exhausted to play this game again.
He dimly registers Morgana's gasp. "Lady Lavenza?"
Joker ignores him. In the loneliness of his own mind, he responds, "I'm not the Trickster you want, Lavenza."
"Perhaps not," she says. "You are not - you are still human, my Trickster."
"Am I?"
"Humans aren't meant to be alone. I did not expect for you to suffer for my own mistake." A pause. The butterfly lands in front of him, its pale eyes gazing balefully into his own. "I - I apologize."
"If you really wanted to apologize, you would finally just let me d-"
Akira wakes up on a train. It rumbles underneath him, rattling his teeth as it bumps against the railroad. His bag teeters dangerously on his knees when he lets go in favor of burying his face in his hands. He curls his fingers tightly into his hair, tugging down painfully on his bangs. The muffled shout of frustration is involuntary, but he ignores the jumps of the people packed around him and the awkward silence that immediately ensues at his tangible rage.
He can't bring himself to care. He hasn't in a long, long time.
Leaving at the next stop is nothing but habit, following a script he's long since memorized. People jump out of his way as he storms out, anxious to escape his warpath.
Warpath? That's funny. Goro would laugh.
Akira all but bursts onto the Yongen-Jaya square, the hub of people aimlessly buffeting around him. The familiar buildings do nothing but make him curl his fists, shoulders shaking. The city seems to be mocking him, clean and bright as always. Lavenza had never stepped in like that before. She's always just passively allowed the cycle to continue, letting him continuously die and retry for an impossible mission. What could have possibly convinced her to finally speak up? Was this her idea of mercy, or was she just like her master all along, wanting nothing more than to watch him suffer?
For a moment, he lets his anger consume him, the need to burn everything down until Tokyo matches his own mood almost unbearable. He has to feel this way, channeling his rage because right now, if he doesn't -
It doesn't matter, not now. If he's still this furious when Arsene finally appears, he might actually die. Metaphorically and literally.
His phone buzzes in his pocket, the familiar announcement of the MetaNav opening. He waits.
And continues waiting.
People continue walking, glaring at him as they pass for daring to stand in their way. They go about their mediocre lives with no regard to what had just - what will - happened, minds blank with ignorance as they follow their predictable paths. None of them freeze in place. No blue fire appears, blazing hot enough that Akira feels it across the square. Arsene's piercing gaze doesn't stare into his soul, matching demonic grins. A promise of endless pain and grief and freedom to come.
Nothing happens. In a flash of panic, Akira caves and pulls out his phone, frantically scrolling through his apps to find the familiar red eye. The Metaverse Navigation should be on the second page, the third app across in the fourth row, because that's always where Akira puts it.
There's a weather app in its stead. A plain, boring weather app, that blankly tells him the temperature when he opens it. He closes it down and refreshes his phone, as if that would do literally anything at all. Predictably, it does not. His magic app does not subscribe to the rules of his regular phone.
Is this what Lavenza meant when she'd called him a mistake?
Whatever. Whatever. It didn't matter. He could deal until it finally appeared. So what if he couldn't access the Metaverse. He hadn't wanted to anyway. He deserved a break after the disastrous end of that last loop.
(Although, the ability to tear through some shadows right now was phenomenally tempting. It had taken him a while to come around to Goro's perspective, but viciously destroying shadows until there was nothing left but black dust and agonized screams was cathartic in a way that nothing else could ever be.)
Unwilling to delay any longer, Akira pockets his phone and uproots himself from the street. Retracing his way to Leblanc is muscle memory. He walks straight past the gruff officer and squabbling pedestrians, turning automatically down the side street to the familiar doorway. Akira has lived in that dingy cafe longer than he has anywhere else, could find it in his sleep.
He hesitates outside the door, hand hovering over the knob. Sojiro would scold him for blocking the way for any of his non-existent customers. Instead, he breathes, slowly in and out, deep in his lungs the way Makoto had once taught him a long, long time ago.
He shoulders the door open, dragging his suitcase in behind him. The bell dings cheerfully to announce his arrival, but for once, nobody bothers to even glance at the entrance. Instead, all of them are focused on the spectacle happening at the base of the stairs. Akira stares with them, gobsmacked, at the flurry of orange hair that is speaking too quickly to be legible.
She finally manages to look beyond Sojiro, who stands frozen in place. She lights up, yelling Akira's name as she sprints around her father. She all but tackles him, and he staggers back under her weight, unready for an arm full of frenzied teenage girl. Especially this particular teenage girl.
Futaba should still be locking herself up in her room for months, why is she -
"Akira!" she shouts, breathless, face only inches away from his. "Akira, we were all fighting and then I just woke up in my bed and I couldn't find anybody's contacts in my phone so I came to find you here but it was just like before when nobody thought I existed and then I couldn't find you and the attic was all messy which meant you hadn't even arrived yet but that didn't make any sense so then I checked the date and it's April and I think we're stuck in a time loop!"
Akira gapes at her, speechless. She looks back at him, panting after her rant. Her eyes are wide, panicked but expectant, always prepared for him to have the answers, but the only thing he can think in the moment to respond with is, "Yeah, no shit."